Due to a pricing cock-up, I just bought five 80-inch widescreen digital TVs on A Certain UK Retailer's website for 49p each!

(nb. they've removed the offending listing now unsurprisingly - I think the news spread pretty quickly!)

what does e&oe stand for?

Thank you for using A Certain UK Retailer's website

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Cat No Product Name Qty Price

******* Bush 28in Integrated Digital TV, DVD 5 £2.45
Recorder and Stand

Delivery usually within 21 days.

Delivery Charge. 1 £4.95

SubTotal £7.40

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So, anyone want to buy a telly? We're saving to go to NYC!

Man, I'd love it if this worked!

: )

how much?

So it turns out that my brother's firm acted for Argos on their last mis-pricing case. He says that the test for contractual mistake in this situation is whether you could have reasonably expected the stated price to be correct. We'd have more chance if the price had been £49, not 49 pence. Argos refused to cough up last time, although other sellers have paid up in these situations.

I think the fact that many of us purchased in multiples may count against us :-(

Which very much echoes what I said upthread, that no court would ever believe that we honestly thought they were that cheap.

Ah well. It was a fun speculative ride!

Also, just found out one of "us" ordered 100 of the things! Hee.

Dear Sir/Madam.

I do not accept your offer of a refund. By both sending me an email to confirm the purchase, and accepting full payment for the goods, Argos has agreed, legally, to the terms of sale. Argos made a mistake - a mistake which it has made more than once in the past, and thus is in no position to defend - and Argos should be held accountable for that mistake.

I would like to know what Argos intends to do to compensate the customers whose goods will apparently not be delivered. I think it not unreasonable to request that all customers who ordered multiple units - as accidental a slip of the keyboard, no doubt, as Argos's original mispricing - should be compensated with one unit, as a gesture of goodwill. The press has already had a field day, and Argos will both save public face and retain thousands of satisfied customers by honouring at least part of the otherwise breached contract.

Thanks for taking the time to read this email. I look forward to hearing from you very soon.

Best wishes...

FWIW i've had one run-in with arsegos customer service, and they capitulated pretty easily ;)

sadly i doubt they'll capitulate over what is quite obviously flagrant opportunism on my part - to the tune of 350 quid - but who knows, we'll see!

I also know of a whole group that saw, astonishingly, NYC/Reykjavik, for $150US last year. They bought nearly the entire plane, and spent the trip as a sort of FAP for the group.

I know! The plan was to use sarcasm as a way to second-guess any excuse they might come up with. So if they say "we didn't mean to put them up at 49p", i'll say "i didn't mean to order five, and my friend didn't mean to order 100 either", and they'll have to concede that yes, these accidents do happen on occasion.

With no way of proving that I *didn't* only want one, they'll cave in to the central argument that I could arguably have only wanted one anyway, and thus wasn't *knowingly* trying to take advantage of their cock-up, and I will thus get a telly!

Hmmm. Hi Argos folks, hope you're reading!

http://osta.delfi.ee/i/upload/y05/w09/509456.jpg

more evidence!

Haha, wifey and I got TWO return tickets from london to Chicago over Xmas/New Year's...and our card was never debited for them. This was almost three years ago, about $1300 worth of flights!

Good luck, Charlie!

More likely response: "So we've both made some mistakes. Let's call it a draw. Thank you for your patronage."

how one technically declines an electronic, automated credit to a credit card, i have no idea, however...

If you want a consumer journalist on your side, Anna Tims in The Guardian is pretty good, though I'm sure even she'd tell you that you don't have a legal leg to stand on. She might get you publicity which leads to a discount, though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/consumer/story/0,3605,1555967,00.html

A friend of mine has just sent the following (riotously impressive) letter to Argos, which makes my meagre effort look like the work of a dyslexic 10 year-old...

I write with reference to the above order number placed on the Argos Direct website on Saturday 27th August 2005. I am writing following an email and a telephone call which I received today from customer services in which I was told that the order would not be fulfilled, and offering me a refund if required. I was extremely disturbed by these, and particularly by the telephone call, especially as the lady to whom I spoke was unable satisfactorily to address the issues at hand.

I am a qualified barrister and I suspect I am therefore more conversant with the law in this area than the majority of your customers. I therefore make it clear at the outset that I reject the offer of a refund, and require the order to be fulfilled as agreed. It is my contention that there is now a valid and binding contract between Argos and me and I exercise my right to enforce that contract. I accept that the price advertised on the website was merely an ‘invitation to treat’ in line with precedent. The offer was made by me by selecting the goods on the website and inputting my credit card details. The acceptance was the processing of those details and the acceptance of payment by Argos for the goods. The consideration for the contract is of course the £2.45 which I paid for the order (I do not consider the £4.95 delivery charge to be an integral part of the contract itself. It is merely contingent to it). At the point that Argos accepted my payment, the contract became complete and binding, and it is on that basis that I require it to be enforced.

It is my view that your terms and conditions cannot and do not abrogate your responsibilities and duties under prevailing consumer regulations. Condition 2.3 is, in my submission, clearly unenforceable other than by a court. It has been held for many years that a contract is complete once there is an offer and acceptance, and consideration for the promise. It has nothing whatsoever to do with subsequent delivery of goods. It is equally clear that in the present case, those three stages were completed on 27th August when payment was taken, as I have explained in the previous paragraph. There is, therefore, a valid contract. As regards 4.2(b), as I stated above I do not accept that that condition is enforceable when clearly in contravention of statute currently in force. Further, the two conditions referred to are mutually exclusive. The former purports to say that there is no valid contract until such time as the goods have been delivered, whereas the latter envisages a position where Argos has made a valid contract and seek to rescind it without penalty due to an error made on its part. I am sure you will agree that Argos cannot argue both that there is, and that there is not, a valid contract. It is my submission therefore that these two arguments cannot be advanced together, and I would suggest that Argos makes it clear which part of its terms and conditions it does, and which it does not, rely upon.

As I have said above, I do not accept a refund, nor will I authorise any further payment in respect of the above order. Furthermore, I will treat any unauthorised refund made by you as a breach of the contract between us, and in that regard do not accept that either 2.3 or 4.2(b) of the terms and conditions apply.

I am aware that an analogous incident occurred with Argos’ website some years ago. On that occasion I understand that Argos offered an Alba 14” television for thee pounds. In my submission the circumstances of that incident were strikingly similar to the current situation, even as regards the actual item incorrectly priced (a television). It is my contention that the previous incident will make it much more difficult for Argos to avoid or rescind the contract on the basis of an ‘honest mistake’ on this occasion. As I am sure you are aware, it is prohibited under the 1987 Consumer Protection Act to give a misleading price, and it is the responsibility of the vendor to prove that any incorrect price is a reasonable mistake. Further, a bare assertion of mistake has been held to be insufficient to evade the Act. It has been held that the company at fault needs to show not only that the price was merely a mistake and nothing more, but also that that mistake was made notwithstanding systems and checks which were in place to ensure that such an error did not occur. I am sure that you are also aware of recent case law in which a vendor was forced to honour an incorrect price (in that case of a camera) which was advertised on its website, precisely because it was not in compliance with the above Act and other relevant regulations. It is my submission that Argos cannot evade liability on the basis of an ‘honest mistake.’

In conclusion therefore, it is my submission that the contract between us, evidenced by the above order number, is a complete and valid one. It is my contention that Argos will be in breach of that contract by acting in any way other than supplying the order as agreed. Further I wish to reiterate that I will consider any attempt to refund my payment or in any other way to conclude the contract, other than by supplying the order in full, as a breach of that contract, and will act accordingly. Finally, it is my submission that the terms and conditions cited in the email I received are not enforceable, and in any event are mutually exclusive. Therefore I would appreciate you contacting me at your earliest opportunity to arrange a suitable day for delivery of the order. I trust that this matter will be swiftly and satisfactorily concluded and look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully

etc

Some mumblings are that my snarky "slip of the keyboard" comments might have pole-axed the whole campaign - hope not!

Love
Argos Customer Relations.

Dell Australia has done a major backflip over a website pricing error it made last week, with customers who paid only $A8.80 for 250GB hard drives to receive them within a fortnight - at no extra cost.
Last week, Dell advertised the hard drives online for the postage cost of $A8.80 instead of the usual price of $A262.90.
News of the error spread on two Australian online forums, and many customers successfully ordered and paid for the drives before Dell realised the error and removed the product from sale.
Dell quickly cancelled most of the orders, but customers who paid were given the option of a full refund or paying the actual price of $A592 - which has since been revealed as another pricing mistake.
Dell had refused to provide the drives at the incorrectly advertised price, but today decided it would honour the orders of customers whose credit card and direct debit transactions had been accepted.
"Part of delivering excellent customer service is actually (listing) an accurate price, so for that reason we want to apologise to customers for any confusion or inconvenience caused," Dell spokesman Paul McKeon said.
"We are going to meet orders from those (people) we have already taken payment when we are satisfied they are for personal use."
But McKeon said the company may not honour the orders of people who have ordered a commercial quantity of the drives. Dell's conditions of sale prevents the immediate re-selling of its products.
"We're investigating a small number of orders where individuals have attempted to exploit the error and order as many as 100 units, sometimes through multiple orders," he said.
Advice from the NSW Office of Fair Trading suggested that customers who paid for the hard drives had a legal contract to receive them at the "agreed price" of $A8.80. Mr McKeon said the company had consulted "the relevant regulatory bodies" in deciding to honour these orders.
Based on posts to internet forums Whirlpool and Overclockers Australia, hundreds of customers attempted to order the $A8.80 hard drives. But McKeon said the number of affected customers - who had payment accepted by Dell and will now receive the hard drives - was "fewer than 30".
Customers who had their orders confirmed by email but did not have payment debited by Dell will not receive the drives.
McKeon said paying customers, who cancelled the transactions after they were contacted by Dell staff but had now changed their minds, could contact the company.
Dell is aiming to have all the drives sent within its stated 7-10 working day delivery period, but concedes this will depend on availability."

Good luck!

Explain the use of the word 'sadly' in this sentence

http://www.standanddeliver.com/acatalog/stuk1103w.gif

Explain the use of the word 'sadly' in this sentence

Umm, cos it's a pity they probably won't budge, and I'll probably get nothing? am I misunderstanding the word "capitulate" here? I'm taking it to mean "acquiesce" or "yield" or "negotiate" or similar...

xpost it comes with a stand, ken!

but i think i deserve a laptop.. can someone look out for a mispricing for me?

£10,000, I meant

challenge TV is amazing. takeshi's castle!

and disregarding all of the above, this sort of correspondence/badinage is just sport at the end of the day. and it's a lot more fun than football (despite the above goal-scoring analogy!).

I so hope this happens. Power to the people!

but then again it was a shit football, and it was the actual price. (it punctured about 5 months later)

There are some beautiful examples of smartarsery in those letters above. Go Team Smartarse!

Damn right! We could do with a pool of ILX form letters. I've got loads - I revel in this shit - dating back to a quibble over an unauthorised £10 removed from my bank account (by my bank) when I was 13, which eventually resulted in me getting the tenner, and the apparent resignation of the offending employee...

maladministration

will report back!

can i try to pwn you all with FOUR GRAND from the royal bank of scotland, plus flowers, plus wine?

they sent the cheque payable to "mr simon [my partner's surname]".

so i sent it back, and demanded they sent me a correctly-made-out cheque ... for £150.26, to cover the cost of the stamp.

fair play to them, they did.

(gobsmacked)

Have you ever seen him juggle?

to be honest, that may well be the point. But he really does know his onions, and it does sound kinda cool.

apparent resignation

(gobsmacked)

Allow me to explain. I don't honestly think our protracted postal wranglings resulted in the member of staff throwing in the towel, but I do recall the naive 13 year-old me being flushed with triumph that the final letter we received from the bank on the issue, complete with apology and full compensation, came from a completely different person - who happened to have the same job title as the person, with whom I'd been corresponding up to that point.

Similarly, I never gave Comet what-for for their astonishing incompetence regarding our fridge in 2003. The full refund (and John Lewis doing inside 48 hours what they couldn't inside 8 weeks) blunted my ire.

But, y'know, good luck getting your cheap tellies. Hopefully the person who maintains their website won't get the loss docked from their wages if you're successful.

I once tried to get Motorola to admit in writing that their iTap predictive text is a) woeful and b) doesn't work right. I came very close, but after an exchange five letters in the end I had to settle for a phonecall from some engineer who did admit both points, but said they weren't ever going to pay up for T9.

I don't know why I did this, except to make me feel better after yet another hasty and wrong buying decision that led me owning the Worst Phone in The World. (It was hasty because the battery on my C5 was goin and I had to get home to watch my new Laserdisc)

i hate to say this but their managers don't seem anal enough?

After my protest e-mails they have relented and are now overcharging me by only £12 this month.

Take that The Mang!

See also previous phone purchases of Sonys P800, Z7 and J5 (working chronologically backwards). And way too much other shit I have bought.

In the end, I was looking at a P910 to replace it but realised I didn't use half the functions on it and didn't need to replace them - so decided on something which was much smaller and looked cooler, and the saving paid for half of my 60GB Zen Xtra.

'It comes down to whether a reasonable person would think it was a joke and they would," he said.'

oh bugger. well, it was a fun flight of fancy...

heheh! a naive 13 year old indeed. a far more likely "bank" scenario is that said staff member was promoted.

My mother would probably have floor-kicked any teacher who yelled at her for letting me read at my own rate. That half of them were her former teachers might have been something to do with it.

Sometime during secondary school half of my brain fell out of my ear I think.

did you write a letter to complain?

i was pretty good at school too and yes picked up stuff quickly but by the time i finished uni everyone caught up and now i'm at some crappy job! yay!

although it's kind of easy to be ahead of class when i go to my first maths lesson in the UK aged 12 and our class were doing fucking SUMS. jesus back in my country we do sums at.. 5?

haha END OF THREDD. You fuckers.

1. gobsmack

To be completely dumbfounded or shocked. That I know of, its origins are Irish.

I have know idea what a "gob" is or why it is common practice to smack somebody with one when they are shocked.

It seems like a rude thing to do, though."Well, I'll be gobsmacked!" exclaimed the taxi driver, as he watched two sworn enemies hug.
Source: Yogi!!, Apr 18, 2005

update: Argos followed the email I posted above with an identically-worded letter; and yesterday, they credited my credit card with the amount they'd debited before.

to be honest, i kinda lost enthusiasm for the whole project - or at least i must have done, since i never even got around to replying to the letter with a "don't you dare give me my money back" tirade.

pity. could really have done with a new TV for nil cash!